Pryce woke up early and quickly prepared for the day under the light of a lantern.
An hour later he sat on the deck of the ship, the sun just barely rising as he waited for the dragon. He had begun to compile important information regarding the species he studied, sort of like a bestiary. Raptors were the only entry so far, and he had little about their behavior other than the fact that they were highly intelligent and seemed to prefer ambush hunting. The fact that two attacks had followed soon after he had killed the first raptor implied social bonds strong enough to beget a sense of vengeance as well.
One thing that concerned him was how the raptors only flinched a little at the sound of rifle shots. It wasn’t something he noticed during the heat of the moment, but virtually all animals can be frightened by loud noises. The crack of a rifle was far louder than almost anything in nature – so why didn’t the raptors run?
The only answer that seemed sensible was that the raptor who escaped him on day 25 had 'told' the others about gunshots, so they knew to expect it. It was an extraordinary hypothesis that lacked sufficient proof…no, Pryce remembered there was one more piece of evidence he had forgotten; the raptors seemed to try and use the masts and smokestacks on the deck of the ship. The escapee didn’t have to know how rifles worked, but she did watch him use the rifle, so she might have figured out that the rifle needed to be pointed at the target.
Of course, raptors could simply have the instinct to use trees for cover when hunting to break line of sight, but it seemed too coincidental to be mere chance, and he promised himself not to underestimate them any longer.
He looked up from his notes for what felt like the hundredth time and saw a bird gliding high up in the sky. He squinted, then brought up the binoculars. Nope, definitely not a bird.
Grinning with excitement, Pryce pulled the hand mirror out of his pocket to reflect sunlight up towards the dragon, hoping they could see it from so high.
Pryce didn’t know if the dragon was already coming towards him or not, but the shape in the distance did seem to flap its wings as if to hurry.
Initially Pryce was going to simply wait on the deck, would have just waited on the deck, but he’d learned his lesson with assumptions by now – he would wait by the doorway, rifle in hand as well as a few sonic grenades in a bandolier in case this was a different dragon from the day before. He felt ridiculous, like a child playing soldier, but he couldn’t afford to take any unnecessary risks now.
The marine grenades were meant to scare off any oceanic predators that threatened the ship by detonating in the water. Though they were designed to be a deterrent rather than a weapon, they were still quite powerful and could probably do some serious damage if it detonated near a dragon. If it could be helped, Pryce would prefer to avoid killing any sapient beings.
Of course, he’d drop the weapons as soon as he verified that this was the same individual he had met. He wasn’t going to antagonize the dragon who had saved his life, regardless of whether they were motivated by altruism or selfishness.
His preparations were fortunately unneeded this time. As the dragon drew nearer, Pryce was able to recognize the three parallel scars he had noted yesterday on its shoulders, so Pryce stepped onto the deck and set down his weapons before jogging to the nose of the deck.
By the time he reached the nose of the ship the dragon was seconds away from landing, so he pointed at the beach and hoped the dragon would land there. Pryce would have liked to wait for the dragon on the beach, but he didn’t want to run the unnecessary risk of sitting out in the open for any raptor to sneak up on him.
The dragon seemed to understand his signal, and they landed on the beach instead of the deck, kicking up a great storm. Pryce waited for the artificial sandstorm to abate before pulling himself over the bulwark and sliding down the rope he had set up earlier this morning.
Landing onto the beach with a light thud, Pryce looked up…right into the face of the dragon staring at him.
“Uh…hi?” Pryce said, waving a hand meekly.
“Ggguuuuuoi?” The dragon said, staring directly at him.
Pryce stared uncomprehendingly, too busy trying to not be intimidated until the dragon made a noise – that sounded exactly like an electrical spark – and brought up a talon, pointing it directly at Pryce’s coat pocket with the mirror. He had no time to ponder how the dragon had generated an electrical spark, if that was what it was.
“Ah, right, you like shiny things, don’t you?” He said as he held out the mirror so that the glass-side faced the dragon. Pryce belatedly realized the dragon had to have seen him put the mirror in his pocket from that great height, just what kind of eyesight did this species have?
The dragon jerked their head back as they saw their own reflection, hissing in alarm. Pryce jumped backwards in return, startled at the sudden aggression, but much to Pryce’s relief the dragon quickly calmed down after their initial surprise.
He grimaced as he realized how foolish he had been, of course someone would be alarmed if they saw a mirror for the first time, and a startled dragon would be dangerous regardless of intent. He should have left it laying around somewhere to let the dragon inspect it themself.
Said dragon was currently bobbing their head as they watched their reflection copy their movement, which probably only showed part of the head, given the small size of the mirror. Pryce slowly set down the mirror and the dragon’s gaze remained intently on their reflection. He slowly stepped back to the ship and went to grab the second-largest mirror he had placed in the cargo hold. He carried it down the ramp carefully while the dragon still inquisitively examined the mirror.
“Hey uh…dragon?” Pryce said uncertainly, the dragon didn’t seem to hear him at first, but eventually lifted their head a few moments later, as if reluctant to tear their gaze from the small mirror.
Then their eyes widened as they locked their gaze upon the bigger mirror, their wings shifted so that their wing-thumbs lifted higher. Pryce mentally noted that bit of body language as possibly meaning excitement as he propped up the mirror with a stick, allowing the dragon to use the mirror without Pryce having to hold it up for them. The dragon stepped towards him, the smaller mirror apparently forgotten as they examined their face in detail, tilting their head this way and that, then opened their mouth to examine their maw.
Pryce brought out a small notebook in his breast pocket to scribble some notes about the behaviors the dragon exhibited. Of every non-human species, only corvids had confidently passed the mirror self-recognition test[1]. Pryce was certain the dragon could pass given its obvious sapience, but it was still surprising to see them understanding the mirror so quickly.
The only natural mirror Pryce could think of would be the surface of a calm lake, so it wasn’t impossible for a creature living in the wilderness to recognize a mirror now that he thought about it, but it was still a sign of remarkable intelligence. He briefly wondered how a human who had never seen a mirror would have fared.
That thought made Pryce wonder if dragons might even be smarter than humans. From what Pryce had seen so far, they seemed to be roughly human level in terms of intelligence, if not higher. But if they were so smart, why didn’t they develop any tools or science? It was possible that this dragon just didn’t carry any tools, but if they had some level of materials science then they shouldn’t be surprised by a mirror.
One look at the powerfully built body and wickedly serrated talons gave Pryce a compelling idea; they simply never needed to. When compared to animals, humans were pitifully weak, which forced them to work together, which eventually led to the development of culture, tools, and technology.
In a way, human weakness was the thing that caused them to become the dominant species of their environment, while dragons were simply born strong.
Or he was completely wrong, this theory did have one hole in it: The dragon had a spoken language. Pryce was quite certain that they had language given the fact that they had names, and if they had language that meant interaction with others of their own kind – after all, an individual couldn’t invent a language without anyone to use it with.
The dragon had stepped backwards to examine their full body in the mirror while Pryce was deep in thought. Pryce noticed that the dragon was fanning their wings in a dramatic sort of way, and hurriedly brought up the camera dangling around his neck to take some photos. The dragon’s spines twitched, and their eyes flicked to the camera as it made a shuttering noise, but quickly returned their attention to the mirror.
Pryce greedily snapped up several photos in a few seconds, then noted a gash at the end of one of the dragon’s right-wing membranes. It would’ve been a large wound on a human, perhaps longer than the span of his hand, but for a dragon it must’ve been a rather small one. He noted that the wings seemed perfectly free of scars, despite their fragile appearance. That meant that the wings could probably regenerate damage very well, Pryce had heard bat wings were surprisingly adept at knitting themselves together given plenty of food and rest.
Pryce pointed at the injury and asked, “Wound?”
The dragon paused in their self-examinations for a moment to tilt their head at him, then at the wound.
“Woo-nn…nd?” The dragon asked, pointing at Pryce’s injured shoulder.
“Wound,” Pryce said in confirmation. That exchange went well, but what Pryce really wanted to know was how the dragon received the wound, and he had to ask that question while also teaching the dragon the words for it…
Having an idea, Pryce held up a finger and said, “wait,” before heading into the ship. The dragon seemed to have no issue with this, returning to what looked suspiciously like preening in front of the mirror.
Well, at least they’re having fun, Pryce thought as he went to find the pictures he had taken.
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When Pryce returned, he held up a picture of a dead raptor – he’d taken it yesterday with an instant camera as he had wanted some physical pictures to look at instead of having to use the film viewer.
When the dragon finally deigned to glance away from the mirror, he said, “Photo,” while holding out the photograph.
The dragon didn’t respond, instead staring at the picture, blinking as they cocked their head and made bizarre throaty vocalizations. Pryce realized too late that photographs would also be very strange if one had never seen one before. Well, hopefully the dragon wouldn’t think he was a wizard or something.
“Fffo…to,” the dragon said after finishing whatever he had said in….dragonish? Dragonese? Pryce decided on Draconic. Then they sat back on their haunches and gave Pryce what he could only describe as a baffled look as they pointed at the photo.
Pryce held up the instant camera, and said, “Camera.”
The dragon spent a few seconds inspecting this strange new thing before parroting, “Cah…merr…ah.”
Pryce pointed from camera to photograph, then taught his first sentence to the dragon: “Camera, photo. Camera make photo,” he said as he aimed the camera at the dragon, taking a picture of his inquisitive face.
“Cah-mera may-kh photo?” The dragon echoed questioningly as the camera whirred and rolled out a colored photo of the dragon.
Pryce grabbed the photo and turned it over to show it to the dragon, who stared at the photo with widening eyes.
A few moments later Pryce pointed at the wound on the dragon’s wing, and asked, “What make wound?”
The dragon still seemed a bit confounded by the photograph, but said, “…ww…aht? What make wound?” in what Pryce interpreted as a confused tone, but fortunately they seemed to realize that ‘what’ could only mean one thing: “Raptor.”
Pryce paused, trying to recall if he had seen that injury on Day 27. He was quite sure he would have noticed the wound, and he didn’t remember seeing it. So that meant the wound was inflicted between the day before and today, which meant the dragon was wounded yesterday by raptors?
Pulling out the first photo he had shown them, Pryce pointed at the raptor in the photograph. “Make wound?”
The dragon gave a thumbs up, causing Pryce to stifle a grin at the strange sight. Now was a good a time as any to teach ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Pryce gave a thumbs up in his right hand, then pointed at it with his left while saying, “Yes.”
“…Yeh…Yes,” the dragon said.
He gave a thumbs down, pointed at it again, then said, “No.”
“No.”
Great, now that the basics were established, it was time for questions.
“This,” Pryce said, holding up the photo of the raptor again, “is photo.”
The dragon blinked questioningly, but said in uncertain tones, “Yes?”
“This,” Pryce said again, but pointing at the raptor in the photo this time said, “is raptor…and this,” he swapped the picture with the one with the dragon he had just taken, “is dragon.” The dragon looked to be following, so Pryce continued, “What make wound…is question,” he said, carefully enunciating each word separately. “Yes is answer, no is answer.”
“Question, answer,” the dragon said, bobbing their head.
“Yes! Yes and no is answer!” It felt more than a little stupid to be speaking like a caveman, but he had to build a foundation first or else the dragon would just get lost and confused. Then he belatedly realized that the dragon nodded, and he tried to remember if they had seen him nod before, but he wasn’t sure. He made a mental note to ask more about that later, it would be quite interesting if dragons and humans had somehow independently decided that nodding meant ‘yes’.
The dragon had tilted their head in thought for the past few seconds, but was now pointing at the photos. “This,” they said, pointing at the photo of the raptor, “and this,” they said as they pointed at the photo of themselves, “is photo.”
“Yes!” Pryce said excitedly, the dragon was following far better than he had expected or hoped. Speaking of, now was a good time to teach ‘or’.
“What make wound?” Pryce asked, but this time pointing at his own shoulder injury. “This,” he said, pointing at raptor, “or this?” He said, pointing at his second machete.
“Raptor,” the dragon said, pointing at the photo of the raptor.
“Yes!” Pryce briefly wondered if he should enforce positive behavior somehow, maybe with food from the ship, but dismissed the idea. He might consider it if the dragon lost interest, but so far, they were just as engaged as he was. May as well continue with things the dragon was interested in.
“Mirror,” he said, pointing at the large mirror on the ground.
“Mee…or…Meer…or,” the dragon said, glancing at their reflection again.
“Knife,” this time pointing at the machete, he didn’t want to use complex words right now and he thought the word ‘machete’ might be a bit difficult.
“Nni…pff…”
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They continued for several hours, Pryce pointing at things and naming them. Most of the nouns were human and dragon body parts, as well as whatever was around, like ‘sand’, ‘tree’, and ‘ship’.
The dragon took a particular interest in the ship when Pryce mentioned it, they tapped the hull a few times, making a deep ringing noise that echoed out of the exit hatch.
“What…is ship?” The dragon asked.
Pryce scratched his head, unsure of how to proceed. Something like that was too complicated to explain using their elementary English. Gesturing weakly as he tried to find words to answer with, he ultimately said, “Complicated.”
“What is complicated?” The dragon asked, tilting their head.
Pryce shrugged helplessly. At least he could teach the words to explain that he would tell them later.
First, he would need numbers.
Picking up an iron rod and a handful of pebbles, Pryce held a pebble up to the dragon and said, “stone” before dropping it into piles, then started drawing in the sand.
image [https://i.ibb.co/1q009Pf/image.png]
“Here,” Pryce said as he pointed at the table he drew into the sand. The dragon took a few steps closer and craned their head. They spent a few moments scrutinizing each numeral, apparently confused.
Pryce began to wonder if dragons even had written language. He could still teach them the words, but it would be better if the dragon already knew of the concept to start with. They had ten talons, five on each foreclaw, so Pryce assumed if they had the concept of numbers, it would be in base 10, just like humans. Perhaps he was mistaken?
Just as he was about to intervene, the dragon began to fill in the table using their talons to draw into the sand. Pryce shuffled over to get out of the way and to get a better view as the dragon worked.
image [https://i.ibb.co/N37RpML/image.png]
Well…at least it was an intuitive system. Zero was definitely an oddball, also strange that it seemed like crossing something out.
Pryce took a few minutes to gather more pebbles and to expand the table. When he was done, he watched as the dragon filled it in once again.
image [https://i.ibb.co/QmPHwyK/image.png]
Definitely an intuitive system, and Pryce imagined it served its purpose quite well if all dragons needed was to record a number of something. Each line was drawn with 1 – 5 talons, so each number from 0 – 10 took at most 2 strokes to draw, while a number like 99 would probably take 4 strokes.
The drawback of this kind of numerical system was that it was almost impossible to do any kind of math with.
Taking pictures of the tables using film and instant cameras, Pryce glanced at the talons again –specifically the strange red glint they had. Red usually indicated the presence of iron…did dragons have some kind of iron compound in their claws? Why? As awesome as that sounded, normal talons would suffice to kill prey, and talons with iron compounds in it wouldn’t be that great of an advantage. Evolution didn’t do things for no reason, in fact, evolution always did the bare minimum. If something worked, then there is no reason to change it.
So that meant dragons had to have some reason to need more durable talons…Pryce glanced at the numbers drawn by the dragon’s talons. If they carved symbols into tougher things like wood, perhaps that was a good enough reason to evolve iron talons.
It was not unprecedented for a species to utilize iron to strengthen itself, beavers had dark orange teeth that incorporated iron compounds in its structure to make it more durable. They needed it because they chew through wood, so maybe dragons used their iron for similar purposes, for example they might carve pieces of wood to build nests or tools, maybe they even had art! Pryce had to stifle a chuckle at the mental image of a dragon whittling wood like an old man.
Pryce wasn’t an anthropologist. He was never really interested in that field of science, but now he could see the appeal. What kind of cultures might a species so far removed from humanity develop?
That was enough theorizing for now, Pryce picked up the rod to focus his next task; teaching the dragon how to pronounce numbers. He pointed at the square with no rocks in it and said, “zero.”
“Zz….ee…roh…?”
Pryce pointed at a lone one rock and said “one.”
“Wh…One.”
“Two.”
“Two.”
Pryce continued going up from one to ten without incident, but once he reached eleven the dragon seemed to flick his spines in what was apparently confusion. They still parroted back the numbers without error, so Pryce kept going. As he counted he realized that from an outside perspective, the counting system didn’t really make much sense.
What was an ‘eleven’? It had nothing to do with ten or one, same with ‘twelve’, ‘thirteen’ at least started the trend of having the -teen suffix. Not to mention it didn’t start with three- but thir-. Fourteen at least made sense, but fifteen had the same problems as thirteen. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen were all like fourteen in consistency at least, and after Pryce got to Twenty he pointed back at the first number while looking pointedly at the dragon.
“One,” the dragon said.
Pryce moved onto the next one.
“Two,” the dragon said, almost…reluctantly?
Pryce pointe at three-
“Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,” the dragon recited.
Pryce stood still, stunned into silence. It seemed dragons have excellent memories, at least when it came to sounds.
The dragon’s muzzle wasn’t nearly as emotive as a human face, but if he didn’t know any better Pryce would’ve said they looked plainly smug.
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Pryce quickly read through the rest of the numbers up to one hundred since the dragon seemed to be getting bored. After the lesson in numbers, he went to retrieve a Go board from the cargo hold.
Setting down a tarp, he brought out 10 stones and flipped them all to black.
“Black,” Pryce said, before flipping them to white. “White”
“Black, white.”
Pryce placed one stone in his palm and said “stone.” Then he placed another in his palm and said “stones”. He scooped up all of the remaining stones and said, “stones.”
The dragon squinted their eyes as they considered the problem. After a few moments they said “One is stone, two is stones, three is stones, four is stones…?”
“Yes,” Pryce breathed a deep sigh of relief; he had hoped plurals wouldn’t be too abstract. He didn’t know if the dragon’s own language even had plurals. It must be a strange concept if one had never seen them before.
“One,” Pryce said as he picked up a single stone. “Many,” he said as he gestured at the pile of stones at his feet.
Pryce picked up one stone away from the group and flipped it to black. “One stone is black,” he said, then moved another black stone onto his palm. “Two stones are black,” he said. Before the dragon could respond, Pryce flipped another one and said, “Three stones are black…Four stones are black…Five stones are black…” Until he flipped all 10 stones.
He started over again, this time tossing the stones in his clasped hands to randomize them. Opening his palm, 6 were white and 4 were black.
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“Some stones are white; some stones are black…most stones are white,” Pryce said before flipping two whites into blacks. “Some stones are white; some stones are black…most stones are black.” Then he flipped seven to black, “Many are black, some are white.” Flipping them all to black; “All are black, none are white.” He flipped them all to white and looked up at the dragon expectantly.
“All are white, none are black,” the dragon answered easily.
He flipped them so 8 were white, 2 were black.
“Most are white, some are black.”
Okay, now that the dragon understood those words, he could teach them ‘more than’ and ‘less than’.
“This,” Pryce said as he held up one pebble in his palm, “is less than three.” He repeated the statement as he added another pebble in his palm.
“This is three,” he said, holding up three pebbles in his palm.
“This is more than three,” he repeated with four and five pebbles in his palm.
“Is this more than five?” Pryce said, holding up one pebble.
“No.”
“Is this less than seven?” Pryce said.
“Yes.”
Great, the dragon was still grasping concepts with ease. Now for something a little stranger. Pryce held up two black stones, “This stone is like this stone,” he said before flipping both to white. “This stone is like this stone.” He flipped one to black, “This stone is no like this stone.”
He thought the difference between ‘no’ and ‘not’ was too difficult to convey right now, hopefully he could teach the dragon the difference later after they established the most important parts.
The dragon looked around on the beach and pinched up one seashell, then flicked a few others away before plucking up a second similar seashell, depositing it into the palm of their talons. “Question: This seashell is like this seashell?”
“Answer: Yes!” Pryce smiled, it was a great idea to preface things with ‘question’ since neither of them could be sure if something was a question or not, he really should’ve thought of it himself. The dragon was even applying the concepts he was conveying on different things, their intelligence was almost frightening if Pryce was being honest with himself.
Now he’d see if the dragon could understand binary logic as easily.
“Question: Is this stone white or this stone white?” He asked, holding up two black stones. “Answer: No.”
“Question: Is this stone white or this stone white?” He asked, flipping one stone to white. “Answer: Yes.”
“Question: Is this stone white or this stone white?” He asked, flipping both stones so it was still one black, one white. “Answer: Yes.”
“Question: Is this stone white or this stone white?” He asked one last time, flipping a stone so both were white. “Answer: Yes”
Pryce looked up at the dragon, who had the impression of one who was completely lost.
“Is this stone black or is this stone black?” Pryce asked, changing tactics as he pointed at the white stone, and then the black.
“Yes, this stone,” he said, pointing at the black.
Huh, they got it right. Pryce wondered if he only misinterpreted his silence as confusion, and tried another example to check if he truly understood it.
“Is this stone white or is this stone white?” Pryce asked, holding up two black stones.
The dragon made an odd rumbling noise, flattening his spines. Confusion? Or something a bit different? “No,” He said.
“Yes, Good!” Pryce said, even if he didn’t completely understand the meaning of ‘or’, at least he’d established some foundations, and it was more than he’d expected.
Then he repeated the same exercise, this time demonstrating the meaning of ‘and’. The dragon seemed to grasp the concept more easily than the ‘or’ example, or perhaps he had caught onto what Pryce was trying to teach.
Pryce looked at the sun that was getting low in the sky. It was a good time to teach the dragon about other colors since he had just taught him about black and white.
Pryce retrieved a prism from his pocket, it was a replacement part for the binoculars, so he held onto it firmly while he introduced the object to the dragon, who took some interest in the new shiny thing.
It took some finagling, but eventually Pryce set up the prism on a small box so that it cast a rainbow onto the ground.
“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.” Pryce said. The dragon apparently had a perfect memory, so he was comfortable teaching words at a quicker pace – though he still took care to enunciate each word clearly.
But perhaps he went too fast this time. The dragon cocked their head as they often did when confused. “Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet.” Pryce repeated, more slowly this time.
Before Pryce could stop him, the dragon lightly poked the prism with a talon, eyes wide at the colorful beams of light that danced across the sand as the prism shifted. Pryce smiled despite being a little annoyed. It was oddly endearing to see such a large and powerful predator displaying childlike curiosity. He gave him a few more moments before tapping where the prism had been and saying, “Here.”
When that elicited no response, he repeated the request more loudly. This time the dragon glanced at him and begrudgingly placed the prism into its original position, though Pryce had to make some re-adjustments to get the rainbow properly visible again.
“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.” Pryce repeated for the third time.
The dragon flicked their nictitating membranes – otherwise known as the third eyelid – Pryce didn’t even realize they had those, but he didn’t have time to ponder the implications, because the dragon reached out a talon and tapped on…the empty spot next to red, then tapped the empty spot next to violet.
“What is this?...What is this?” The dragon repeated the question as it tapped the two apparently empty spots.
Pryce stared blankly for a few moments before remembering the sun emitted wavelengths of light far outside the visible spectrum. Humans could only see a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum aptly named the ‘visible light spectrum’, which contained wavelengths of light from 380 nm to 700 nm (nanometers).
As a general rule of thumb infrared light could pass through anything visible could, but could ultraviolet light pass through the glass of a prism? Apparently it could, judging by the dragon’s reaction, but what wavelengths? Pryce excused himself for a moment to find a textbook with the information he needed:
Ultraviolet (UV) light at 280 nanometers (nm) and below was referred to as UVC, UV light from 280 – 320 nm was called UVB, and 320 – 400 nm was UVA.
UVC was so short that it was absorbed by the ozone layer, so he didn’t have to think about those wavelengths.
Wavelengths of light 330 nm and above passes through most glasses, assuming this prism was made of glass, that would mean the prism would be opaque to UVB.
That left a band of UVA next to the violet band, and a band of near-infrared next to the red band that Pryce couldn’t see.
Why could dragons see UV light? No idea. Perhaps it allowed them to see past the camouflage of certain animals…like the raptors? It was a good idea, but it could easily be used for other things.
Pryce wasn’t sure what the longest wavelength of IR light that the prism could split was, but given that the dragon only tapped on one spot he guessed it was only about 70 nm longer than the red wavelength.
Why did dragons evolve to see IR light? Pryce knew very long wavelengths of IR did go through clouds, which would be a pretty important sense for flying creatures to have, but if the dragon could only see wavelengths a bit longer than red then that didn’t make sense. He also knew birds didn’t have the ability to see in IR, so there must be another reason…he’d have to ask about that later.
Pryce was…absolutely amazed, he didn’t know of any creatures in the animal kingdom that could see UV and IR. Oddly enough, the only known creature in the animal kingdom to hold that distinction was the goldfish.
He couldn’t think of any way he could determine the lowest wavelength of UV light that dragons could see. If the dragon could see light below 320 nm, then glass should appear a bit tinted, if not then the glass would be clear, but how could he teach the dragon what clear was? Water blocked UV light, so it would appear somewhat darker, the same way it absorbs red and emits blue, so…maybe if he used a little bit of water? That should be clear.
First, he had to name the bands of light. “UV, IR,” he said, pointing at the invisible bands next to violet and red. Then he tried to explain that he couldn’t see the bands of light the dragon could. “Pryce yes see,” Pryce said, pointing at his eyes and then at the rainbow. “Pryce no see,” he said, this time pointing at his eyes and then the bands of UV and IR.
The dragon cocked their head, blinking in confusion. Pryce didn’t blame them for not understanding. It took humanity a while to realize there were types of light that we couldn’t see, and he didn’t do a great job explaining either.
Moving onto his experiment, Pryce poured a little bit of freshwater from a bottle onto his cupped palm and looked up at the dragon.
“Water.”
“…Water,” the dragon said, glancing away from the rainbow.
Pryce placed a black pebble in his hand so it sat underneath the water, then asked, “Question: You see black stone, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Stone is black, water is clear.”
“Water is c…leer.”
Pryce pointed at the glass. “Question: Is glass clear?”
The dragon blinked – normally this time – and answered, “Some?”
Alright, that settled things; Since the glass was somewhat clear to them, that means they could see the UV light below 330 nm being absorbed.
Pryce could hardly contain himself, he was the first human in all of history to learn all about these things! He wanted so badly to see what the dragon saw, what kind of world did they see?
Since he taught the dragon water, Pryce asked the dragon to wait as he grabbed some salt from the galley, then returned and pointed at the ocean, “Ocean, ocean is water with salt.” Then he poured a bit of salt onto his palm and said, “This is salt.”
The dragon leaned their head over and flicked a tongue out to taste the air, their eyes widening in surprise.
“…Sss…alt?” They said, sounding a bit different than normal. Pryce wasn’t sure what emotion that was. Salt was rare and valuable at one point in time, maybe it was also valuable for dragons? Their gaze almost seemed comically longing. The ship had brought plenty of salt as it was used in flavoring and preserving meats. As the only person around, Pryce had plenty to share.
“Take salt,” Pryce said, holding out the bag.
“Take?” The dragon said, their wings lifting up a bit as they pulled their head back – surprise.
“Yes, take.” Pryce confirmed, and the dragon reached out to hold the paper bag carefully between two talons.
The dragon shifted, almost as if uncomfortable. Then they reached over to scratch at a spot on their back, dislodging a scale and giving it to Pryce.
Pryce accepted the scale enthusiastically, it was perhaps five centimeters across, larger than any scale he had ever seen, but more interesting was its lack of color. It was the slightest bit iridescent like an opal or nacre, but it was mostly transparent. It must be the hide underneath the scales that gave it its color.
The dragon didn’t quite make eye contact when offering it, as though they thought it was not a sufficient payment for the salt, but Pryce was ecstatic to have a scale to study later. Happily pocketing the scale, Pryce decided it was time to ask some more personal questions.
Pryce wasn’t much of an artist, his artistic experience began and ended with sketches of scientific diagrams, and those mostly of cells, so it took a minute for him to sketch a recognizable dragon in the sand. When he was done, Pryce pointed at it and said, “dragon.”
The dragon craned their head to look at the sketch. They cocked their head this way and that before snorting dismissively, then wiped away the sketch with their tail – almost knocking Pryce over.
“Hey!” Pryce protested, but the dragon ignored him as they placed a talon into the sand and started drawing.
Half a minute later, an objectively better sketch of a dragon laid in the sand. Pryce crossed his arms and glared at the dragon, who looked completely unrepentant. Well, at least that answered if they had art. The sketch was sort of stylized, being halfway between an icon and portrait, and the important features like the legs, wings, head, and straight twin horns were easily discernible.
Resisting the urge to grumble, Pryce did his best to copy the sketch to draw a second dragon next to the first. This one was a passable replica, judging by how the dragon didn’t wipe it out of existence. Then he drew a family tree line connecting the two and pointing to an egg – Pryce hoped they laid eggs; else he’d have to draw a baby dragon…which would be a hatchling? Or dragonet? Pryce went with the latter.
“This dragon and this dragon make egg,” Pryce said, pointing with the rod as he talked.
The dragon made an odd snorting noise in response, then brushed away Pryce’s second drawing of a dragon.
“Hey!”
Ignoring Pryce once again, the dragon drew another sketch, but this dragon was a bit bigger than the previous one with some kind of markings around its head. The first dragon’s horns were straight and long, while the second dragon had a set of horns that curled like a ram’s.
Pryce nodded, mollified a little. He had drawn two male or two female dragons, he wasn’t sure if the straight-horned sex was male or female.
Pryce hadn’t taught the dragon the word for ‘which’ yet, but that was because he could just say something like; “What dragon make egg?” While pointing at the two dragons.
The dragon pointed at the one with curly horns. Pryce smiled as he took pictures of the sketch – first nonhuman art recorded by a human! Technically it was a joint artwork too, even if all he drew were the lines and the egg. Now he finally had confirmation on the dragon’s gender, too.
“Male, Female,” Pryce said, pointing at the straight-horned dragon, then the curly-horned one.
“Male,” the dragon said, pointing at himself. Pryce wasn’t sure what the dragon was getting at until he pointed at Pryce. “Pryce, male?”
Strange, he’d never seen a human before, so how did he guess what gender Pryce was? Maybe it was just a lucky guess.
“Answer: Pryce is male,” Pryce confirmed, and the dragon nodded.
Next on the list was age, and that needed him to establish words for time.
“Sun,” Pryce said, pointed at said object in the sky.
“Ts…Sun.”
“Day,” Pryce said, then pointed at the sun before gesturing to the western horizon, down into the earth, up the eastern horizon, and coming to a stop at the sun again.
“Day.”
“Three hundred sixty-five days is ‘year’,” Pryce explained. He wanted to say it was ‘one year’, but the dragon might misinterpret that as one word.
“Three…hundred…sixty-five…days is year,” the dragon said slowly, as if mulling over each word.
Pryce wasn’t sure if the dragon completely understood the human number system yet, so he drew what he thought was the draconic symbol for 365:
image [https://i.ibb.co/pRtjx5R/image.png]
The dragon perked up when he started drawing the number, and made a strange crooning noise. Was that…encouragement? Approval? The dragon almost seemed to recognize the number pretty quickly, did dragons know how long a year was?
Knowing the length of a year wasn’t as simple as it sounded, especially given that this island might not even have seasons. Most scientists, including himself, held the belief that the most likely possibility was that the island would have a very stable climate year-round due to being so close to the equator, as well as being surrounded by the massive heat sink that was the ocean.
If they didn’t have distinct seasons, then the only way for someone to know about years would be if they looked at the sun and observed how days shortened and lengthened in cycles, and the amount of time from one summer equinox to the next would be one year.
“Three hundred sixty-five days is year,” the dragon repeated, more confidently this time.
“How many years you see?” Pryce asked, which was the closest he could do to asking how old the dragon was.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the dragon seemed confused by this wording.
Pryce struggled to come up with a better way to word the question, but nothing came to mind, so he’d just have to teach new words.
“Question: When you take pig? Answer: two days ago.” Pryce said, swinging his arm in two arcs in the opposite direction that the sun traveled, hoping the example would make sense.
“Question: When raptor make wound?” He asked, pointing at the gash in the dragon’s wing.
“…Answer: one day…ago…” The dragon said, mulling over each word.
“Yes!” Pryce said while giving an enthusiastic thumbs up. Then he sketched a line pointing from egg to a small dragon while keeping an eye on the dragon to make sure he wouldn’t wipe away this one.
“Egg make dragon, is ‘hatch’,” Pryce explained.
“Ha…tch,” the dragon agreed.
“Question: When you hatch?”
“Fifty…two…years ago,” the dragon answered.
Pryce stared, unblinking.
“…Question?” He asked upon seeing Pryce freeze up.
“I’m fine,” Pryce said automatically before he realized the dragon wouldn’t understand those words. “Fifty-two years ago?” he checked, and received a nod in response.
“Question: When you hatch?” The dragon asked.
“Uh…fifty years ago,” Pryce said.
The dragon snorted before saying, “You some.”
Pryce frowned, trying to puzzle out what the dragon meant. He had taught him that ‘some’ was used when a lesser amount existed, so the dragon was calling him…small? Little? Young? Pryce dismissed that thought; no one would have ever called him young, particularly when he had even more grey hairs than usual after his recent ordeals. Besides, it didn’t make sense given that the dragon was only two years older than him.
The dragon in question seemed to perceive his confusion, and pointed at the small dragon coming from the egg. “Question: some?”
“Answer: dragon hatch one year ago is young, no some,” Pryce said, hopefully that would clarify things. The dragon made a nodding motion in response, so Pryce went on to ask, “No young is old, when old dragon hatch?”
“…Old dragon…old dragon four hundred, five hundred years ago hatch.”
“What.” Pryce said involuntarily.
“Old dragon four hundred years ago or five hundred years ago is hatch,” the dragon tried again, mistaking the source of his confusion.
Pryce shook his head and sketched out the draconic number for four hundred and five hundred to check if he wasn’t mistaken, and the dragon nodded his confirmation.
“Young dragon make egg, how long ago hatch? More than what years?” Pryce tried, wondering just how long it took for dragons to reach sexual maturity. Was the one he was talking to an adult, or just an adolescent? Pryce was fairly certain – and hoped – that the dragon wasn’t a child.
“Young dragon make egg, is hatch ten years ago,” the dragon answered easily.
Pryce nodded, it was a reasonable amount of time to mature, though dragons must grow quite explosively in those ten years.
Now that he thought about it, referring to the dragon as ‘The Dragon’ was getting annoying. Hopefully he’d accept a name that Pryce could pronounce. He sketched several more dragons into the sand. “Dragons” he said as he gestured broadly at the sand-dragons. Then he pointed at the dragon questioningly.
“Huroumh-ǂ,” the dragon answered, a strange wordless noise that Pryce could not even begin to approximate using the alphabet. Time to see if the dragon would accept a new name.
“Fathom,” he said, pointing at the dragon.
He had spent perhaps too much time thinking of a suitable name, but the first dragon to talk to a human deserved a good name. At first, he thought of naming him after mythical dragons or ones in popular stories, but that would be confusing if he ever introduced the dragon to other humans. Those names also tended to be a little too ostentatious, but on the other hand most human names felt a bit bland to be suitable for a dragon. Drake sounded cool enough, but he didn’t consider the name because he had some naming sense.
So in the end he decided on Fathom. It had naval connotations, which suited the dragon’s dark blue scales, and it meant ‘six-feet’, which referred to the obsolete system of measurement, but it also had a double meaning since dragons were hexapeds, and ‘Fathom’ also meant understanding, which the dragon certainly had an aptitude for-
“Huroumh-ǂ,” the dragon said.
“…Fathom,” Pryce repeated, thinking the dragon misunderstood.
“Huroumh-ǂ,” the dragon said stubbornly.
“Fathom,” Pryce said, more forcefully this time.
“Huroumh-ǂ,” the dragon hissed, neck spines flaring out.
Pryce held his hands up placatingly as he considered his options. The dragon seemed sensible enough, but he didn’t want to upset him. For all Pryce knew names were sacred in their culture or something.
If he was so insistent on keeping his name, maybe it was time for some persuasion.
“Fathom…take mirror?” Pryce wheedled.
“Huroumh-ǂ take mirror,” the dragon said obstinately.
“Pryce no make Huroumh-click,” Pryce said in equal parts exasperation and desperation, he really didn’t want to keep using a word that he couldn’t even pronounce.
The dragon glared at him for a few moments while Pryce resisted the urge to look away from the baleful gaze. “…Fah…thm take mirror,” he grumbled, breaking eye contact as he accepted the name.
Pryce silently celebrated this success until Fathom whipped his head around and jabbed a talon at Pryce. “Gharum,” Fathom said.
Pryce blinked, then pointed at himself questioningly.
“Gharum,” Fathom affirmed.
“Gharum?”
“Gharum,” Fathom agreed, sitting down with a satisfied air.
Pryce wasn’t sure what to think about getting a nickname, but he supposed it was fair. He did wonder what it meant, and suspected it was something derogatory or at least a little insulting.
While Pryce was puzzled over this unexpected development, Fathom sketched something into the sand while periodically glancing at him. Pryce examined his drawing and saw that it was a group of humans…or at least he was pretty sure that’s what it was. Each human looked something like an H with a circle on top and arms at the shoulders.
Resisting the urge to fix the sketched humans to get back at Fathom, he instead drew several stickmen like the ones seen on bathroom doors.
“Dragon,” Fathom said as he gestured to the sketch of dragons, then he gestured to the stickmen. “Question?”
Ah, he was asking for what humans called themselves.
Deciding not to correct the dragon for now, Pryce pointed at one stickman. “Human,” He said. “Humans,” he emphasized while waving the rod at all of the stickmen.
“Hue-mahns,” Fathom said, shifting their wings a bit. Pryce couldn’t tell what that meant, but it did remind him to ask what had happened.
“Question: Wing wound, raptor make?” Pryce asked, meaning to ask why the dragon had been fighting raptors.
“Yes,” Fathom said, evidently confused by Pryce asking the same thing. He probably should’ve taught the word for ‘how’ and ‘why’, but he got distracted and went off topic several times today…though in fairness those were difficult concepts to convey.
“Fly,” Pryce said, pointing at the dragon’s wings. Fathom looked confused, so he flapped his arms to get the idea across. He snorted at Pryce’s silly actions, but seemed to get the idea and made a weak flapping motion to communicate that he understood.
“Question: how fly?” Pryce asked, flapping his arms, and pointing at the dragon’s wings. “Answer: Wings,” Pryce said, answering his own question so the dragon could get what ‘how’ meant.
Fathom cocked his head, either thinking or confused, so Pryce continued. “Question: How raptor make wound?”
“Answer: Talons,” Fathom said, bringing up a foreclaw and flexing the claws.
Pryce grunted in frustration; it wasn’t Fathom’s fault, but he had hoped the dragon would elaborate on the why since he wasn’t really sure how to teach the meaning of that word.
Deciding to give him a demonstration, Pryce picked up a spare piece of cloth. “Cloth,” he said before dunking it into the ocean. “Cloth take water,” he explained as he wrung the cloth, squeezing the water out. “Question: Why cloth take water? Answer: Ocean.”
He was able to find a small clam on the beach after a minute of searching. “Clam,” he said, pointing at the mollusk he had laid on a flat rock. Then he grabbed a hammer and smashed the shell open. “Kill,” Pryce said. “Pryce kill clam. Question: Why Fathom kill raptors?” He asked, hoping that Fathom would understand ‘why’ from the context if nothing else.
“Raptors…” Fathom said, trailing off. “Raptors…kill Gharum, Fathom kill raptors.”
That didn’t make sense, raptors hadn’t killed him. The obvious answer was that Fathom didn’t have the words to voice his thoughts, so he did the best he could…but did that mean he killed raptors because they tried to kill Pryce?
“Raptors try to kill Gharum,” Pryce corrected, unsure of how to feel about his hypothesis.
“Raptors try,” Fathom agreed, an unusual lilt to his voice. Was that humor, or something else?
“Wait,” Pryce said, holding up a finger. He went back inside the ship and entered the med bay to retrieve some topical antibiotic, washing his hands and popping a pill of penicillin as he did so; he had a headache and felt the symptoms of a light fever, that was definitely a problem he wanted nipped in the bud.
“Pryce take wing,” he said as he stepped back onto the beach, though Fathom looked askance at his request.
“Pryce see wing?” He tried, approaching the limb. Fathom kept his wary gaze on him, but didn’t move away. He unscrewed the tube and squeezed out a bit of ointment onto his fingertip. Fathom craned his long neck over and sniffed at the ointment, then rapidly drew his head and wing back with a hiss.
Pryce sighed and walked over to sit down on a stone, then took his coat off to gingerly unwrap the bandages on his shoulder. Some of the wound was in the process of scabbing, and had stuck itself to the bandages, making the removal an unpleasant process. When he was done, Pryce carefully wetted a clean rag to clean the wound. Once he was satisfied with the state of the injury and that none of the stitches had come out, he carefully rubbed the ointment over the gash. It was an antibiotic and a topical anesthetic, so it would keep the wound from getting infected and help numb the injury.
When he was done, he wrapped the injury with fresh bandages and stood to look at Fathom, who was still staring at him with a wary eye. Pryce rolled his eyes and poked at his wound and dramatically cried out in pain. “…This is pain,” he said, standing up and pointing at the tube of ointment. “This make pain less.”
Fathom didn’t immediately respond, but slowly lowered his wing. Pryce took that as permission and washed his hands before moving to apply the ointment. He picked a clean wet rag and reached out to gently –
Fathom hissed in pain, making Pryce jump.
“I haven’t even touched you yet!” He snapped, too exasperated to bother finding the right words in their limited vocabulary. Fathom seemed to realize the same thing even without understanding what Pryce said, and grumbled as he relaxed a bit.
Pryce quickly but gently washed the wound, cleaning out the dust as best as he could without causing much harm. As he cleaned the injury he noticed the wing was warm; not very surprising, cold blooded creatures didn't have high metabolisms and he doubted one could ever fly.
Once he was satisfied with the preparations he placed a dab of ointment onto his finger and gently rubbed the gash in the wing, ignoring Fathom’s various noises of discomfort. The wing had a strange texture; the thin scales weren’t exactly fixed in place, but slid over each other like segmented armor. Most of the wing was covered in these very fine scales that were smooth in one direction and rough in the other, but more interestingly some scales were significantly larger and thicker around the edges than the others, almost like a ring. These thicker scales were spaced out in a regular pattern much like a honeycomb if each corner was a thin scale and the center was a thick scale.
He also noticed that the initial gash seemed to be smaller than the current one; the scabbing was thicker in the center of the gash, while the edges were thinner. The tear had probably grown like the rip in a piece of clothing, but what was most interesting was the fact that both ends of the wound ended in the middle of a thick scale.
The structure reminded him of a stophole; a technique used to stop a crack by drilling a hole at the ends of the crack to distribute the stress. Wings were flexible things, so holes wouldn’t work to stop tears; instead dragons seemed to have evolved specific scales that were thin at the center and thick around the edges so that when one edge of the scale was broken, the scale would work to distribute the stress and prevent the tear from growing.
What confused Pryce was how the tear seemed to expand from the initial slash and meander into a ring-scale. Perhaps the structure of the tissue encouraged rips in the wing membrane to lead to a ring-scale, or perhaps the structure of those scales made it weak to tensile forces and strong against compressive ones, which would stop the rip when the ring-scale cracked open.
It filled Pryce with wonder to see such an elegant feature in a living creature - assuming his hypothesis was correct, of course, but the evidence seemed pretty strong.
The basic medical treatment was over quite quickly, but the scientist in him couldn’t resist measuring the wound – which was 10 centimeters in length – and taking a few pictures of it. It had the fortunate excuse of being useful in observing the healing process. Who knew when he’d next be able to treat a dragon’s wound? Having some baseline of their rate of healing would be incredibly useful for future diagnosis.
“Done,” Pryce said, taking a few steps back. He didn’t bother with a bandage; there was nothing to wrap, and any adhesive bandages would fall off or hinder his flight.
Fathom flicked his wings cautiously, then flexed his wings fully for a few moments. “Pain…less?” He said, sounding almost uncertain.
Pryce yawned, noting that the sun was quite low now, and was amused to see Fathom yawn in response. Interesting, that made dragons the third known species that could be affected by contagious yawning – in addition to people and dogs, of course.
Pryce pointed at the sun and said, “Sunset,” he pointed in the opposite direction and said, “Sunrise.”
“Sunset,” Fathom agreed, then seemed to remember something as he leaned in more closely. “Gharum no forest, forest kill Gharum.”
“…Yes, understand.” Pryce said, warily glancing at the forest. Fathom had apparently scared off the raptors yesterday, what other dangers were in the forest?
“See Gharum, sunrise,” Fathom added, before gathering the bag of salt and the mirror in his foreclaws.
“Wait!” Pryce shouted, remembering to bring out a broken red ceramic cup that he had found in the galley. It wasn’t a mirror, but he hoped Fathom would understand the two were similar. “This,” he said, holding out the glass, “is ceramic, is like glass. Mirror is glass.” He brought an iron rod down on the broken glass cup, shattering it to pieces and making Fathom flick his spines back in displeasure. “Ceramic is fragile, Glass is fragile, mirror is fragile,” Pryce warned.
Fathom looked at the ceramic shards, his head drooping. Pryce wondered if the dragon thought it was a shame to destroy something he thought was pretty. “Yes,” he finally said, then waved Pryce off before leaping into the air, flapping his wings strenuously. It seemed like he put a lot less power into his hind legs than the first time Pryce had seen him take off, probably to avoid damaging his precious cargo.
Still, Pryce shielded himself with his good arm, and held his breath until the miniature sandstorm settled. Spitting out a few grains of sand, he watched as the navy-blue dragon slowly shrunk into the distance.
----------------------------------------
> [JOURNAL ENTRY]
>
> I’m glad to report that today was very productive.
>
> I managed to teach many words and concepts to the dragon – who with some difficulty has agreed to the nickname ‘Fathom’. He is an exceptionally quick learner and has learned words and concepts at a ridiculous rate. It’s like I’m talking to one of those linguistic geniuses you hear of in the news once in a while.
>
> Tomorrow, I plan to teach him more nouns, as well as pronouns which will make speech less tedious. I’m already tired of referring to myself in the third person.
>
> It is strange that dragons can see both UV and IR; I don't know any creatures that can do that. I'm also not sure why they evolved to be able to see both UV and IR…maybe they evolved to see raptors, or at least to see creatures with active camouflage?
>
> I should think of some way to test the limits of dragon physiology, such as the range of frequencies they can hear and the exact wavelengths of light they can see (current conservative estimate: 330 nm – 770 nm)
>
> …but I’m too tired. I feel like a fever is coming on again, so I’m going to take a dose of antibiotics every day for the next week. At least talking to Fathom is enjoyable and not physically demanding, so my body will have time to rest and recover.
>
> I am going to sleep now.